Recently, I've been in a coloring mood. As a kid, my Mom knew she could keep me out of her hair...happy as a clam and quiet as a church mouse... as long as I had a coloring book and a shoe box of Crayolas. I still derive contentment from the process and get a "high" when I smell a box of crayons1 I'm not sure, but think I might have just confessed to a case of arrested development. Oh well, I guess we never outgrow some things.
Anyway, when I know I want to color an image, Memento Tuxedo Black is my go to ink and Neenah Solar White cardstock is my paper of choice... unless I feel myself leaning towards watercolors, that is. I grab a scrap of paper from my stash (why waste a whole sheet if you start out just noodling around?) ink and stamp and then start coloring. On this recent afternoon, I had my box of Prismacolor pencils on my craft table, so I used them to apply color in bright, almost neon tones. I used Gamsol mineral spirits and a blending stump to smooth the transition of one color into another and to eliminate any pencil strokes. This technique mimics the look of Copic markers and is a perfect choice of coloring agent if you are creating a one layer card.....no bleeding through the paper like you'd see with the markers. This choice of colors is not my usual path. Some days I'm in a sepia mood, some days I am drawn to muted pastels, some days to bright primaries. Who know why. I just let my color mood take charge and hope for the best. Maybe Peter Max was guiding my way that afternoon!
When a project starts it's life this way, it might end as nothing more than an interesting experiment or a way to ride the learning curve of a new product or technique. But, sometimes the results just cry out to become something. When I finished the first fishie, I knew he needed to swim with a friend. So, I colored another image from the set. I fussy cut them both and applied some glossy accents where I thought they should sparkle and dusted them with some ultra fine glitter. (Still have some on my face, I think!) I set them aside before grabbing a border die to cut the waves as well as a sun and some clouds...again cut from paper salvaged in my stockpile of scraps. So, I began building the card background, applied the waves and reached for the fishies. I could only find one of them on my desk. (Those of you who know me will recognize this scenario.) So, I guess even a paper fish flops around and can "jump out of the net" once it's out of water. I visually scoured the floor and moved and lifted everything on the surface of my worktable in search of the wayward fish. No fishie in sight. So, I bit the bullet and stamped, colored, cut and glittered another fish. I applied them to the background, using pop dots to lift them out of the water (the magic part of working with paper is that fish don't need to hide their beauty under the waves!) and called it done. I started to clean up my work area (trying to build a good new habit) and guess what I found....the third fish in the wastebasket. So, I decided that there would be three fish in my paper ocean.
Here's a close-up shot that shows off the glitter!
As I was taking the photos, I realized that I had nearly recreated the cover art of a great piece of kiddie lit...Good Night, Little Rainbow Fish! Follow the link and see if you agree. 
